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On September 8, 2016 the Star Trek fandom marked a significant milestone, the 50th anniversary of Star Trek: The Original Series, the groundbreaking show that changed television and science-fiction forever. In fact, all of last year was dedicated to this celebration in a number of ways, such as the release of multiple novels from Simon & Schuster as well as the release of the third movie in the rebooted franchise, Star Trek: Beyond. It is indeed a celebration like none other because what Gene Roddenberry and others created all those years ago still has huge ramifications for all of us.

The Legacies trilogy is part of this grand celebration, bringing together fan-favourite writers like Greg Cox, David Mack, Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore to present a riveting story that goes all the way back to the core history of the series itself and features none other than Number One. An away mission gone-wrong in hostile territory, a promise fulfilled after eighteen years, interstellar conflict, spies and espionage, Legacies has everything that has come to define Star Trek over the years and is a great series to read, even for any newcomers to the franchise.

The first Comics Picks of the new year, and while I of course wished for a Magic 40 to kick off 2015, I’m happy with the fact that I didn’t go overboard much and read only a few measly 10 comics, two of which were graphic novels.

For the first week of 2015, the top hits were SHIELD #1 from Marvel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes from Boom Studios, Legends of Red Sonja Volume 1 from Dynamite, and Star Trek/Planet of the Apes from IDW/Boom Studios. The disappointing reads of the week were both from Zenescope unfortunate, Dark Shaman #3 and Quest: Age of Darkness Volume 1. The others… they were decent, nothing major.

As mentioned above, the graphic novels for the week were Legends of Red Sonja Volume 1 from Dynamite and Quest: Age of Darkness Volume 1 from Zenescope. The former was a fun book where Gail Simone brought together several different female prose writers, paired them with different artists, and wrote a grand, sweeping Red Sonja story. The latter was part of the publisher’s Age of Darkness event and was more a prequel story.

Anyway, here’s another edition of “Comics Picks For…”. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

One of the many ways that IDW Publishing’s Star Trek franchise has thrived in recent years is with crossovers with other popular franchises, whether in comics or otherwise. I got back into comics in 2012 with Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes, which was a fun story in itself. Crossovers like that can often be quite fun indeed, bringing two very different properties together. There’s also the fact that crossover events have become a done thing these days, with every publisher getting on the bandwagon, especially the Big 2. Of course, in the midst of all that, IDW wouldn’t want to be left behind, especially coming after crossovers like G.I. Joe vs Transformers.

On the final day of last year, which happened to be a Wednesday and thus a New Comic Books Day, IDW and Boom Studios have released a new crossover, Star Trek/Planet of the Apes. The possibilities here are endless really, and when the crossover was announced, I was quite excited since I love both franchises, though I haven’t checked out Boom Studios’ various Apes comics, which do appear to be excellent. But we have this new crossover now, and the writers do a good job of setting up the main conflict and bringing the two wildly different settings together in a great way, which is where the artists come in and do their job.

As per my plans, I didn’t do one of these posts in the past 2 weeks since I was on a holiday. And a great holiday it was indeed. I didn’t get to do more than a very small handful of reviews, more like just two or three in all, but I managed to read a fair bit and kept myself on target for my comics reading.

The surprise hits of this week were Storm #1 from Marvel and Star Spangled War Stories #1 from DC Comics. The surprise flop of the week would be Batman #33 from DC Comics. Not exactly a bad comic but just a disappointing one. All the other comics were pretty much good, excepting Flash #33, where I still can’t really connect with what the new creative team is doing there. I wanted to read a trade paperback comic as well during this week, but the first few days of the vacation were very busy and all these comics were pretty much read in the last 2-3 days of the week so that didn’t happen.

Anyway, here’s another edition of “Comics Picks For…”. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

A few days ago I did my best of 2014 list for the novels I have read in the first half of this year. That list followed the same format that I have been using for 2 years now, but with this new list I decided to make a big departure, owing to how many comics I’ve been reading in recent months, often 80+ comics in a single month! That’s crazy.

So, with the books already having been covered, I now delve into my favourite monthly comics of the year. The next post will be at the end of the year for the second half of the year.

You can check out my top-of-the-month lists on my Reading Awards page and this list is both an extension, and a continuation of what goes on there.

This past comics week the preparations for my upcoming marriage swung into full gear and its been a rough week in all, especially since it took me a grand total of five days to read a single novel, which happens extremely rarely, but which I fear might become common over the next few weeks. Still, I managed to catch up on most of my comics last night and early this morning, so it was good.

The surprise hits of this week were Armor Hunters #1 from Valiant Comics, Cyclops #2 from Marvel Comics, and Red City #1 from Image Comics. The surprise flops would be Abe Sapien #13: The Healer #1from Dark Horse Comics, Vampirella: Morning in America #1 from Dynamite Entertainment. Comics that I expected to be great, such as Grimm Fairy Tales Presents #4 from Zenescope Entertainment, Captain Marvel #4 from Marvel Comics, Batgirl #32 from DC Comics and The Royals: Masters of War #5 from Vertigo Comics were truly great reads that made up for an otherwise lackluster week, in the main. Not a whole lot of new stuff from DC either, so I spent time reading up a few of the older issues and worked my way through two graphic novels no less, Dark Horse’ Conan: The Phantoms of The Black Coast and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2: Angela.

Anyway, here’s another edition of “Comics Picks For…”. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

After all the heavy reading of the previous weeks, this past week proved to be a little less intensive, but not by much. The only real difference this time was that I didn’t get to read any graphic novels or trades. And I only just managed to read all these comics anyways because things are getting hectic here with all the marriage preparations, not to mention the court marriage I had the other day (yes, officially married now!). So yeah, things are just a little bit really hectic.

The surprise hits of this week were 7th Sword #1 from IDW Publishing, Harley Quinn #6 from DC Comics, and Dejah of Mars #1 from Dynamite Entertainment. The surprise flops would be Batman #31 and The Flash #31, both from DC Comics, both of them quite disappointing in that the arcs do not make sense anymore and I’m really turned off of them. Comics that I expected to be great, such as Ms. Marvel #4 from Marvel and Thanos Annual 2014, also from Marvel, and Future’s End#4 from DC Comics, were all good, amongst others. So a nice spread of everything, as usual.

Anyway, here’s another edition of “Comics Picks For…”. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

I keep pushing myself week after week to read as much as I can since it is not like my current reading pile and backlogged comics are going to reduce in size, or that upcoming comics are going be less. For the last 2-3 weeks, I’ve been reading 20+ comics and this week I tried to aim for a good, solid 25. I ended up with 26 individual issues and a 5-issue graphic novel. So, 27 items in all. That’s a hell of a lot and I’m really surprised that I read so many last week. Far cry from the same time last year when I was managing 10 a week at most. I just wasn’t reading all that much I suppose.

The surprise hits of this week would definitely be Star Trek: New Visions #1 from IDW, Street Fighter #0 from UDON E and Robyn Hood: Legend #1 from Zenescope whereas the surprise flops would be IDW’s Transformers vs GI Joe #0 and DC’s Batman: Eternal #6. Both these books were incomprehensible and even silly beyond the silly. Books that I expected to be good, such as Archie Comics’ Afterlife With Archie #5, DC’s Future’s End #2 and Marvel’s Fantastic Four #4, were what I wanted them to be and they were all three of them great. And special mention for Archaia’s Hacktivist which ended on #4 with a great issue that wrapped up the existing plotlines very nicely. And I did manage to read a graphic novel this week, Grimm Fairy Tales Presents Realm Knights Vol.1 and got a start on another, Fables Vol.3, so that’s something too.

Anyway, here’s another edition of “Comics Picks For…”. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

A few months ago IDW began a new series of Star Trek comics. These are quite different from normal comics in that they feature photo-realistic artwork, i.e., all the characters and scenes are as they appeared in Star Trek: The Original Series rather than an artist’s free inspiration. Called photonovels by IDW’s Star Trek team, the first issue was quite a fun little story that tied into the original show and gave a fun new story for readers and fans. And now IDW is going full-out with these, creating an entire line of such comics, and I think that it is a fantastic time for such an experiment.

Star Trek: New Visions #1 is the first of this new series and it ties into the episode where we saw the Enterprise of another reality, one where the Federation is a tyrannical conqueror rather than a multi-species alliance united in common cause. The issue picks up quite soon after the events of that episode and then it moves forward, charting new territory and bringing back some old characters in new forms. And the ending, well that’s a kicker all right. John Byrne’s photomontage/story is pretty excellent here and the experience is just as intense and entertaining as the original episode was. Read the rest of this entry →

Another week of more than 20 comics read, and this week I went for something a bit different and tried to read as many of the comics from the Big 2 as I could since I’m a bit behind on that score and needed to catch up. But that wasn’t all of course, since I also got a start on IDW’s Star Trek and finished up Dynamite’s Kings Watch among other titles.

The surprise hit of this week would definitely be Nailbiter #1 from Image Comics and Neverland: Age of Darkness #1 from Zenescope whereas the surprise flops would be Marvel’s Cyclops #1 and DC’s Batman: Eternal #5. No idea what is going on with those titles, although I hope that they both improve. Series that I expected to be good, such as DC’s The Movement #12 and Marvel’s Black Widow, were what I wanted them to be and that pleases me immensely. And Dynamite’s Kings Watch should rate a mention since the series ended on a high with the last two issues. No graphic novels this week, as I was a bit too cramped for time otherwise, but hopefully the new week will be different.

Anyway, here’s another edition of “Comics Picks For…”. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.